SECTION FOUR - PERSONAL INSTRUCTIONS TO DISCIPLES - Part 9

As you move forward you must,
for the next twelve months, come to a clear understanding of my injunction to
you, given earlier, to "seek the pinnacle of loneliness which is the sole
place whereon truth can be known." This is an injunction to increase your
capacity to withdraw into the focussed point in the illumined mind where no one
else can accompany you, and there await the arrival of the truth—that
particular truth which your personality demands from your soul and which you
feel—at any given time—it is essential that you grasp if your service and your
progress are to be properly furthered. This demand, based on a sensed need,
will vary from year to year, but there will always be some truth, some aspect
of understanding and some immediate revelation which you know (past all
controversy and discussion) that you must grasp and know if you are to move
forward as desired—by your soul and by your Master.

At this particular time what
is that immediately needed truth, information and revelation which you must
have? It is not for me to tell you, even though I know. It is in the
formulating of that need and that requirement that your progress will be made.
I would ask you, on receipt of this instruction, to determine in your mind,
upon quiet reflection, what is your one immediate spiritual need. Then seek the
pinnacle of truth within yourself and there await the revelation. It will
inevitably come if you care enough and have adequate patience.

The past two years have been
preparatory years for you, even if you do not yet know for what ends they are
the preparation. They have taught you much. But here I would remind you that
all the teaching, training and experience which you have undergone has now to
be brought to a point of synthesis within the illumined mind; it then becomes a
potent seed thought, capable of bringing much intuitive perception and later
revelation.

[630]

Will you therefore do the
following things and follow the procedure outlined below:

1. Summarise in your own
consciousness, and in the light of your soul, the nature and purpose of the
experiences and changes to which you have been subjected. Endeavour to see the
big sweep of the intention and be not preoccupied with the detail. Formulate to
yourself in clear concise sentences your conclusions, so that the lessons of
the past can stand revealed to you.

2. Determine then within
yourself what is the next needed truth, type of revelation or requirement which
will enable you to move forward with increased potency, clearer vision and
truer insight. This will not be as easy as it sounds, because this next truth
must relate the past to the future of service, as you see that service.

3. Then with these two lines
of thought held quietly and clearly in your mind, seek that "pinnacle of
loneliness" which is to be found if due search is made. There the desired
truth and revelation can be expected and awaited. Then wait.

4. When your intuition begins
to move and your patient waiting, quiet reflection and steady mental poise
bring their reward of clarified perception, then endeavour to apply the
recognised truth and the germ of the revelation to the practical affairs of
living. You will then find taking place a steady enrichment of your entire
life.

This will constitute a richly
rewarding exercise and—could you but grasp it—constitutes a definitely advanced
form of meditation. You will find this meditation project a most interesting
experiment.

Another thing, my brother.
This war period will not last indefinitely. Already the end is in sight, and
for its termination you must be prepared. This is not only worldly practical
wisdom but also spiritual prevision. Your work in my Ashram must some day be
more definitely an aspect of my work [631] in the outer world than it now necessarily is; I would
have you ponder upon what you can do. Disciples in all Ashrams (and mine is no
exception) are pledged to the work of their Ashram, and this you have always
known. E'en though it is true that all work is spiritual, given right motive
and intention, yet disciples are definitely pledged to certain hierarchical
forms of service which must take precedence in all life activities even
whilst—at the same time—the disciple fulfils his other tasks in the outer
world, based on his right obligations and responsibilities and upon his
citizenship. Have this definitely in mind, and remember that I need the
assistance of this entire group within my Ashram. I also need their individual
cooperation and understanding of the problems to be met. It is permitted to me
to give a general call and to state specific principles and lines of activity
which should govern the work of my disciples. It is not permitted for me to say
when or where that service must be rendered.

The group work and the four stages
of reflection which I have outlined for you will suffice for your spiritual
enterprise at this time. These and the work you are doing in your present field
of labour present adequate opportunity for living and progress. My love and
blessing are yours and upon that you can count.

November 1944

There is within your
consciousness at this time, a major question. You have been taught by your soul
to question; you have absorbed the injunction that a Master arrives at His goal
through a process of questioning and of finding, alone and without any outer
aid, the answer. With you, this is a fixed belief and understanding, and that
is good. The question in your mind which still lacks an answer is evoked by my
statement in the last instruction I gave you that the work of the Ashram is
ever the prime obligation of the disciple.

Necessarily, this work varies
according to the status of the disciple and his place within the Ashram. I have
given you (in various group instructions) the stages of discipleship. [632] These were
stages within the consciousness of the disciple and concerned his relation to
the Master. They detailed his progress from a rare contact to a position close
to the Master. It is of value now to add to these individual steps those which
concern a disciple's position within the Ashram, and this from the angle of his
ashramic duty and service. This is a different matter, and though related to
the interplay between him and his Master, these stages are concerned with
action and with the results of his expanding consciousness within the
hierarchical awareness; they are related to his perception of truth as response
to the Master's radiation evokes in him certain developments, stimulates
certain qualities and new characteristics, and brings to his mind
enlightenment.

These stages in service and
in recognition of duty and obligation are related to status more than to soul
growth and control, though this growth is one of the determining factors as
regards his position in the Ashram. Let me enumerate them, leaving you to place
yourself in the category of servers to which you belong, and leaving you also
to demonstrate to the world the nature of your ashramic position. I will give
you the esoteric names and symbols of this differentiation:

1. The stage of the
"awakening urge." Of this stage, the half-opened eye is the
symbol. The neophyte, just admitted into the Ashram, becomes (as the Book of
Instructions for Neophytes expresses it) "the victim of a dual sight. With
the right eye he sees a shaded way into the central Ashram; from point to
point, from light to dark and dark to light as the pillars point the way, he
sees a narrow corridor and at the end a room; within that room the passing
figure of the Master appears and disappears. With the left eye, a world of mist
and fog, of gloom and shadowy forms is seen—a land of woe and dire distress,
with light and shadow moving back and forth. From within that gloomy land a cry
comes forth: We need your aid. We cannot see. Come hither with the light."
In these phrases is embodied the first reaction of the new disciple to the dual
life to [633] which
his admission to the Ashram has committed him—the life of ashramic instruction
and of steady approach to the Master, plus the life of outer service which must
come as a response to need and not as a fulfilment of an enjoined duty. He sees
in neither direction with clarity. Remember ever that approach and service must
be self-initiated and self-implemented. The only help which the disciple gets
at this stage comes from the stimulating effect of the aura of the Ashram.

2. The stage of
"advance." By this I do not refer to progress in understanding.
That is inevitable in time and incidental in space when the disciple is
immovable in his determination. I refer to the process of his moving forward
(technically understood) along the pillared corridor, simultaneously with his
appearance in the outer world as an ashramic worker. You have a phrase which is
usually employed in a derogatory sense of "social climber"; it refers
to a person who—dissatisfied with his social position, his social contacts and
his social relationships—uses every and any method to penetrate into those
social milieus which have seemed unattainable. It is a platitude to say that
all unworthy goals (because incorrectly motivated) are the lower correspondence
or symbolic expressions (e'en though distorted) of higher aims and aspirations.
This thought should clarify your thinking. A disciple at this stage is a man
whose character and capacities have permitted him to enter the Ashram with the
full consent of its membership. He hovers, however, on the periphery of its
activities; he knows that here are action, contacts and relationships—within the
ashramic ring-pass-not—which can be his some day. Yet he also knows that he has
to master the meaning of the paradoxical statement with which his voiced
aspiration was met: "Go out the door and leave the Ashram as it was and as
you are; seek for another entrance; find what you seek by leaving it behind;
move forward through the art of moving back."

In the blazing light of the
Ashram the disciple realises that he has not yet earned the right to pass along
the corridor to the Master's sanctum, but must needs go forth [634] into the
world of men, of darkness and of pain; then he can return to the Ashram for
strength to continue his work outside. What lies outside the door of the
Ashram, symbolically speaking, becomes to him of greater moment than his own success
in passing along the corridor. What has happened to him, as both his eyes
"function in the dual light," is that his sense of values is adjusted
and his own progressive satisfaction becomes of less importance to him than
what he can do to ameliorate the pain and distress outside the door.

3. The stage of
"leaving each pillar behind its own shadow." Is it only a truism
to point out that as service proceeds, and the effectiveness of that service
increases, the disciple when he enters the door of the Ashram, discovers he is
no longer standing upon the inner side of the door but has already penetrated a
definite distance along the corridor? Certain pillars are left behind. One of
the Masters—using the word in its correct sense—has called these symbolic pillars
the "pillars of propriety," meaning that each pillar passed indicates
the attainment of certain aspects of appropriate conduct. When these aspects of
behaviour are developed, the disciple can pass up and down the corridor at
will, which symbolises to him the, as yet, undeveloped phase of ashramic
conduct. These pillars embody the final phase of illusion—those illusions which
bewilder the disciple but have no effect on anyone outside the Ashram. These
you must discover for yourself. There are five more pillars which you must
develop the ability to pass before you have the complete freedom of the Ashram.
You have already learnt to pass seven of them and they, for you, are now
non-existent.

4. The stage of the
"withdrawing alcove." I have to put these aspects of
consciousness into material symbolic forms so as to bring pictorially to your
attention the phases of approach which you and all disciples must follow. The
pillars (again symbolically) no longer stand on either side of your way of
approach. Though there for others, for you they constitute no longer any
concern. The way stretches clear before you. The hope of free admittance into
the [635] room
where the Master works is a present possibility. But within the Ashram,
protecting the seclusion of the Master, is the antechamber to the place where
He works and in that antechamber His senior disciple presides. This disciple
protects the Master from undue disturbance, is responsible for the care of His
physical vehicle when He goes into "samadhi," has the right to
interrupt Him in moments of emergency, and can be trusted to pass in and out of
His study, whenever he deems it desirable. This arrangement requires the
advancing disciple to recognise the senior disciple; it is this process of
recognition which oft constitutes the final test, prior to being allowed
through the inner door.

5. The stage to which is
given the name "the right of entry." When this stage is reached,
the disciple can come and go as his soul and the need of his service in the
outer world may dictate. He has developed the sensitivity to know when, or when
not, he may intrude into the presence of the Master. He finds, when he has
arrived at this point, that all desire to contact the Master for his own
satisfaction or help has left him. One thing only sends him on the wings of
light along the corridor and strengthens his hand to open wide the door, and
that is world need.

You will discover, my
brother, under these symbols the lesson which I am seeking to convey to you. I
enjoined you in my last instruction to realise the need of achieving a pinnacle
of loneliness, for on that pinnacle lies for you that which you need. What that
is, you must find out for yourself. Have you learnt something anent this lonely
spot? If so, the next development for you may involve (I did not say
"would") the lonely moments spent as you, from pillar to pillar,
advance along the corridor, spurred by the needs of those you seek to serve.
Then will come the moment when the senior disciple will symbolise for you the
end of loneliness and greet you as a brother. What takes place later between
you and the Master is your own individual secret, shared with Him.

One point I seek to emphasise
to you at this time is the [636] need for you to recognise more definitely that the
way into the inner sanctum is the way of outer service. This service must
not be motivated by the exigencies of the period, or by financial
considerations or the behests of the personality. It may or may not include the
place where your outer work is being done; it may necessitate a change in your
setting and circumstances, but the disciple—if true to his soul and the
Ashram—serves his fellowmen as an esotericist as well as a humanitarian
and a psychologist. This is a point which you must grasp. You must then fit the
tasks assumed and undertaken into the symbolic picture which I have given you.
I count upon your understanding because I am not speaking idle words; I count
also upon your giving consideration and quiet reflection to my next statement.

There is some definite work
planned by me which must be implemented by the members of my Ashram; it is work
which you can undertake. It is related to the major task of goodwill which is
so close to my heart; it will necessitate sacrifice upon your part and maybe a
relinquishing of lesser goals. If recognised by you, it will mean that the
"pillars which guard the approach to the sanctum" of your Master can
be left behind; you will have reached the point where you can enter the
"room of withdrawal." Again I speak to you in symbols. You are nearly
sixty years old, my brother. The sixty-third year of your life, as in the life
of all disciples, will be one of crisis and of supreme opportunity, and towards
that point you should look and for it you should make preparation. The interim
should be a time wherein you pass the pillars, wherein you go from point to
point with your consciousness held steady within the Ashram and your
personality activity adhering to the task imposed by your soul.

A basic decision will shortly
confront you, and upon that decision will depend your right of entry,
technically understood. I may not even indicate to you the nature of the coming
crisis, nor may I give you any hint as to what your decision should be. I have,
however, confidence in you, for you have learnt much in the past five years;
you have gone from strength to strength and have passed from pillar to pillar,
even if you did not realise it. You will discover the [637] quality of
your strength when the need for decision confronts you. I await you in the
inner room.

August 1946

I have nothing to say to you
today, my brother, of major moment. My last instruction to you was long and of
vital importance; you have not yet absorbed its full significance. In that
instruction there were two sentences which I seek again to emphasise in your
consciousness. They are:

1. The way into the inner
sanctum is the way of outer service.

2. The sixty-third year of
your life—as in the life of all disciples—will be one of crisis and of supreme
opportunity.

These two statements are
closely related. Crises, my brother, can be objective or subjective; they can
take place on the physical plane, and are then not of such great significance
from the spiritual angle, even though they cause much suffering and pain to the
personality: they can emerge into consciousness on the emotional or the mental
planes, and they then present opportunity for action, but mostly for action
connected with the personality; or they can be the result of soul intent,
registered by the personality and recorded in the brain. They are then of
supreme importance, but very frequently remain unrecognised unless the disciple
is very alert and constantly aware of the cyclic flow of spiritual energy.

Such a crisis confronts you.
Has your spiritual sensitivity increased during the past few years so that you
can be sure that you can recognise the crisis for the opportunity it is, when
confronted by it? Here are the points I would have you consider, for upon your
recognitions and your decisions rests much of the usefulness of the rest of
your life—that is, from the angle of the Ashram.

There is a peculiar
difficulty connected with the realisation that there are relatively only a few
years ahead for the [638] majority
of the group. Here are four of the difficulties which prevent the sensible and
happy realisation of the future transition:

1. The tendency to settle
down and take the position that one has done the best one can and that that is
all one can be expected to do. This renders the few remaining years simply an
expression of habit and of established character, and prevents the undertaking
of any new spiritual adventure.

2. A recognition that one
has reached one's high water mark for this life and nothing more can be
expected. This may be true from the personality angle, but the soul remains
eternally young and unsatisfied, knowing no static point.

3. A preoccupation, growing
year by year, with the processes of growing old, with its liabilities,
its physical symptoms and ugliness, and its required (?) withdrawals. This is a
usual and ordinary way of approaching one's declining years and the regular
procedure with the great majority. See that it is not yours as the next decade
elapses.

4. The recognition that the
soul, enjoying the full richness of life's garnered experience, is now free to
serve. No new problems are tackled; no new disciplines are applied; but the
disciple uses all that he has in the service of the Ashram, and that for the
remainder of his life.

I am seeking to bring all
these points to your consideration, for they embody choices which await you,
and it is your right to know what they are. I will make no further comment
beyond emphasising that there is a definite and conscious choice to be made,
and leaving you free to think the matter through.

You have in the past done
much to help the work I planned. You are today among those interested in
discovering their spiritual enterprise. Discover it, my brother, and have an
enterprise which will count in the realisation (I use [639] not the word
manifestation) of the Kingdom of God on Earth. Be interested anew and alertly
in the hierarchical plans, and fit yourself into the time schedule of my ashramic
purposes. Adjust your sense of values, which have shifted considerably lately
(I say not whether for good or not, for that is your affair), and make your
life count in the hour of humanity's need.

I have the following
suggestions to make as regards your meditation work:

1. Orient yourself
dynamically towards the Ashram and towards me, your Master, and ponder for a
while upon your relationship with me and its various implications.

2. Orient yourself towards
the spiritual enterprises (for there are several) which emanate from the
Ashram, under my direction, and reflect upon your responsibility to them.

3. Orient yourself to your
chosen daily work and consider where opportunity there arises which can be
fitted into the spiritual vision which all disciples carry with them.

4. Orient yourself to your
own soul and consider what are the duties and responsibilities and relations of
that soul in all the three worlds of experience.

5. Then sound the OM three
times in order to clarify the mind; quiet all emotional reaction and endeavour
to make your brain receptive to the higher spiritual impression.

6. Then in your own words,
and as the soul, speak to me and discuss with me your life and spiritual
intention. I shall not respond, but (bear this in mind) record will be made of
that which has the power to penetrate into the Ashram.

7. Say the New Invocation,
sounding the OM after each stanza.

8. Close your meditation by
saying—as the personality and with emphasis—"May I do my whole duty as I
journey towards Thy sacred feet."

[640]

You have known me for many,
many years now, my brother. I remain the same and unaltered; therefore my love,
strength and understanding are factors upon which you can at all times
assuredly count.

To E. E. S.

August 1940

BROTHER OF OLD AND CO-WORKER:

This year and in fact during
the past three years, many problems have arisen in your life and these have
been complicated by the fact that the physical vehicle is not functioning as it
should. With that condition you must learn to live, treating it with due wisdom
and at the same time ignoring it in the service of humanity and in ours. One
attitude infers right physical care; the other attitude sets the note for the
mental reaction. This I think you know and are working successfully towards
this way of living. I mention it because one of the things all disciples have
to achieve (prior to initiation) is a right mental attitude toward that aspect
of the physical body which is not regarded as a principle and which is
only the automaton of the inflowing forces and of the inner man. The energy
which governs the physical body emanates from that aspect or integrated aspects
where lies the focus of consciousness. Perfect health will come, therefore,
when the focus of consciousness is permanently in the soul. This is not
possible for any of you at present because of the point in evolution and
because of the mass relation and the mass karma, superimposed upon the
individual karma.

You are handling the
situation adequately, my brother, and where there could be an imposed
expression of soul life, you need not for me to tell you, for you are aware of
your own limitations and of your own weaknesses. Your first ray physical body
is of service to you in many ways. See to it that the tendency of the first ray
to withdraw from contact to the isolated aloofness of the first ray does not
unduly condition you upon the physical plane. You will know to what tendency [641] I refer.
Your whole life goal at this time is to give loving strength to others
through tapping the source of all love yourself. There are those you can aid.
You will do so at this time through giving them increased loving understanding.

As regards certain problems
of activity known to you, I would encourage you to persevere with much caution
and wariness. The early stages of the work you are seeking to do are fraught
with some danger, as again you know. These difficulties, if successfully
surmounted, will lead to greatly minimising other risks later in your planned
work. A.A.B. will talk with you about this matter if you so wish, and will
convey to you my suggestions whenever you want them. I have spoken to her and
made them known, hence the brevity of my communication to you at this time. You
will comprehend.

I have however a meditation
which I would ask you to follow and to do so dynamically. By that I mean:
Become simply a point of concentration when doing it, with all personal
problems and conditions temporarily obliterated from your consciousness. To produce
this concentration, I will give you a breathing exercise with the meditation.

1. Relax and turn the
eyeballs upward. The Hindu system of rolling up the eyeballs does aid in this
matter, and the point where the quivering of the eyelids ceases or is forgotten
indicates the point of relative physical poise.

2. Take seven long breaths,
slowly and without strain and as you do so visualise yourself as mounting
higher and higher with each breath. To do this the more easily, picture
yourself as mounting seven steep steps.

3. Then, at your highest
point, sound the OM, retaining its force in the head by an act of the will but
without any strain or pressure. The retention of energy is not a
physical matter but a mental process. This is a subject of importance.

4. Then, holding the
consciousness as high in the head as possible, see how long you can achieve the
position of listening without becoming negative or losing the [642] recollection
of who you are or what you are doing. Never relinquish in this work the sense
of personal identity. Until I give you permission, do not hold this listening
attitude for more than three minutes.

5. Then breathe out the OM
through the ajna centre, the centre between the eyebrows, and say:

I choose the way of the
interpreter, and therefore ask for light.

I choose the way of loving
guidance, and therefore ask for lifting power.

I choose the way of
inspiration, and therefore ask for flowing life.

I choose the way of
integrating, and therefore ask for the seal of silence.

6. Then sound the OM seven
times and proceed with the group meditation.

These phrases have each three
esoteric meanings. Take one of the above sentences each for one month
and then repeat the process of reflection twice, thus covering a year's work.
See if you can arrive at deeper significances than those which appear on the
surface.

NOTE: This final
instruction to this disciple follows immediately upon the one which is
concluded in Vol. I, page 649, and the footnote there still applies.

To D. P. R.

January 1940

Life has been so difficult
for you, brother of mine, that I hesitate (because I have an understanding of
much that you are enduring) to lay upon you any further burden of
self-discipline or more of the life of introspection. You have stood in the
midst of your world and watched it come down, crashing around you; you have
stood as a tower of strength to those who are tied to you in the closest links
and have not [643] failed
them; you have preserved your values clear whilst seeing the material values
dissolve into thin air. That you still have a few personal glamours and are
still taken in by your own high grade reactions to circumstance and people is
of course true but I question whether anything is to be gained through your
focussing your attention upon them at this time.

Stand steady, therefore, and
be not unduly distressed. Avoid at least one glamour and that is the glamour
that it is your task to shoulder all responsibilities and make all final
decisions. Leave people, brother of old, the opportunity which you yourself so
much welcome, of learning the needed lessons. Seek not unduly to lift and
shield, for the shielding mother-complex is in itself a glamour.

My love and strength is at
your service.

August 1940

MY BROTHER:

One of the outstanding
characteristics of the pledged disciple is that he learns to stand steady and
unmoving no matter what may be happening to him or around him. Much is
happening to disciples these days for they bear the brunt of the world's
cataclysm. You may perhaps find this an astonishing statement but I would ask
you to remember that they meet the prevalent conditions on all three planes
simultaneously and are at the same time endeavouring to live as souls. The
accuracy of my statement is, therefore, apparent if you will ponder for a few
minutes on the implications. There is appalling suffering everywhere.
Physically and emotionally, people throughout the world are handling the
maximum of pain. The accepted disciple, however, is suffering also mentally and
to this must be added his capacity to identify himself with the whole; his
trained imagination also presents special difficulty for he can include
possibilities which others may not envisage, and his sweep or grasp of the plan
is presumably greater; he is also endeavouring to apply his knowledge of this
plan to the immediate environing [644] situation and is strenuously attempting to understand
and at the same time to interpret to others, no matter what he may be
undergoing in his own personal life.

In many cases, such as yours,
environing conditions and chosen associates tend to complicate matters and you
are, therefore, today facing your major life crisis and, I would add, you are
facing it satisfactorily.

There are many types of
crisis in the lives of all aspirants, but in the case of those who are pledged
disciples there are always two major crises in their lives: There is first of
all the crisis of opportunity and its wise recognition. At some time,
every disciple is faced with some determining choice which leads eventually to
the distinctive nature of his life service. This usually takes place between
the ages of twenty-five and forty, usually around the age of thirty-five. I
refer not here to the choice which every able bodied and sane man has to take
when he determines his life work, his place of living and his life associates.
I refer to a free choice made when these other lesser choices have been made.
Such a choice came to you in your earlier years. This crisis of opportunity
relates ever to life service. This is true in spite of karma or environing
conditions. It is not a choice of the personality, based upon expedient or
earthly motives, necessity or anything else. It is a choice based upon the
relation of the soul to the personality and only confronts disciples.

The second crisis is the crisis
of expression. This usually comes towards the later years of a disciple's
life. It concerns his stabilised life tendency and puts to the test all that he
believes and for which he has stood and fought throughout his life experience.
It is ever a hard and bitter test, going to the very roots of his life, and for
those in preparation for initiation it is peculiarly acute. The conditions of
the test may apparently seem no worse than the tests and difficulties which
assault other people but, as I have pointed out above, they have to be met on
all planes at once. Soul energy is ever involved thereby and this intensifies
the response of each individual body in the lower man and also the personality
as a whole, the integrated man. The stage of responsiveness which every
disciple has achieved in relation to his environment, [645] his
associates and his service greatly aggravates his difficulties. I am explaining
this somewhat in detail as I am anxious to have you comprehend the nature of
your problem and so be able to handle it with increased poise, understanding
and triumph. Behind you lies a crisis of opportunity; you met it well. Today
you face your crisis of expression and you will come through; true triumph is
dependent upon specific achievement upon the inner planes and upon wresting the
true values out of any situation, and of these, values based upon the physical
plane are by far the least important.

If you will, all of you,
study the instructions given by me to the individual members of the group and
to the group itself, you will find that I am giving you definite instructions
in the Way of Initiation. Your response and your search lies, however, in the
field of esoteric recognition more than in the field of the reception of new
facts. So much has been given out in the past few years and decades anent
initiation; it has largely been made exoterically, and received exoterically
and the true import of the teaching has been veiled. My task with you is not so
much the impartation of new facts, truths, points of view and interest, but the
awakening into reality of that which your mind already has received as theory
and hypothesis.

You stand today, my brother,
at a major point of crisis and you stand alone. Those in your immediate
environment are of no special service to you for they are not yet upon the path
of discipleship. They are in the earliest stages of the path of probation and
are unaware of it also. You have, therefore, only three sources of strength:

1. First and foremost, your
contact with your own soul through meditation, reflection and joy.

2. Your contact with me, your
Master, because through me some of the strength of the world of souls and of
the Hierarchy can reach you.

3. Your group brothers in
this new seed group.

I would like to point out
that in these three contacts you have the three aspects of divine expression
appearing—from [646] the
angle of stimulation and of vitalising power—and so three types of power are made
available. Beginning with the lowest contact, your group brothers, you have the
intelligent activity and consequent stimulation upon the physical plane
of your contact with them; through your soul contact, the love aspect of
divinity can be made manifest in you; and through your hierarchical contact,
the will of God can pour into you. Thus all the three aspects of the
divine nature can pour into you and meet with response from the three aspects
of your lower manifested expression; thus you can become subservient to the
divine. Ponder on this and seek to establish these contacts firmly and upon
sound non-emotional lines.

You have a particularly
interesting group of life forces or energies conditioning you, interesting
because of the specific combination. The saving grace of your life expression
has been your second ray astral body because the combination of a first ray
soul, a fifth ray personality and a third ray physical expression might have
resulted in a hard, concrete materialistic person. These rays are the ones
which have produced what is called the Prussian type of mind. Incidentally,
this ray combination produced your karmic relationships in this life.
Fortunately for you, your past immediate incarnation as a personality was
overwhelmingly second ray and of this you brought over a second ray astral
nature and a fourth ray mental equipment. Hence the balancing in two directions
and hence also the general trend of your life conditioning.

It was your first ray lines
of force which placed you in the particular locality in which you live and
brought your life partner to you. It was your second ray background and its
effects in your present life expression which hastened your affiliation with
myself and brought to you your particular group of brothers in the new seed
group. This information may prove of use to you even if it only serves to
strengthen your faith and to indicate to you the reasonableness of the
situation which your circumstances are forcing you to meet.

Therefore, your major need is
to strengthen and preserve the three contacts which form the background of your
spiritual [647] life:
your soul, your relation with me and your connection with your group brothers.
By so doing, the sense of universality and of an expanded consciousness will
grow and deepen and enable you to achieve that sense of proportion which will
reveal the little self as an integral part of the great Self or Whole. By this
statement I refer not only to your relation between the soul and the
personality but to your relation—as a living entity—to the greater whole of
which Humanity and the Hierarchy are integral parts. I would suggest,
therefore, a line of thought or of meditation which will deepen and strengthen
these attitudes. To this end I am going to suggest five points of recollection
for you each day:

1. On awakening in the
morning, before rising.

2. At noon.

3. At sunset, whatever hour
that may be.

4. On retiring at night.

5. At the time of the group
meditation, whenever you may decide to do it.

Thus a living continuity of
sensed relationship will be established in your consciousness.

1. On awakening, sound the OM
inaudibly and say: "I am one with the light which shines through my soul,
my brothers and my Master."

2. At noon, again sound the
OM inaudibly and say with deep and slow reflection: "Naught separates me
from my soul, my brothers and my Master. My life is theirs and theirs is
mine."

3. At sunset again sound the
OM and say: "Naught can dim the love which flows between my soul and me,
the little self. Naught can come between my brothers and my self. Naught can
stop the flow of strength between me and my soul, between my brothers and my
soul, between the Master of my life and me, His pledged disciple."

[648]

4. On retiring, before you fall
asleep, you again sound the OM and say: "From darkness lead us to light. I
tread the way of life and light because I am a soul. With me there walk my
brothers and my Master. Therefore within, without, and every side, there is
light and love and strength."

5. When doing the group
meditation, begin to capitalise on this growing consciousness and before doing
the work, link up with as much conscious realisation as possible with your
soul, your brothers and myself, realising the indestructibility of the tie.

This work carried forward as
a definite exercise will produce in you a deepened available strength and
poise. It will only take a few seconds at each point or stated time, but those
seconds will serve as points of crisis and of inpouring strength.

August 1942

1. I come to Thee, Lord of my
Life, and from that point achieved, close at Thy feet I work.

2. Between me and the outer
world there appears a haze of blue. That blue protects and hence I have no
fear. Through it, I may not pass.

3. And from this hour and
henceforth upon the Way, I seek to Be. I seek no more to know,
because this life has taught me how to know and with this knowledge gained, I
now can serve by Being.

4. Before me streams the Path
of Light. I see the Way. Behind me lies the mountain path, with stones and
cobbles on the way. Around me are the thorns. My feet are tired. But straight
ahead stretches the Lighted Way and on that Way I walk.

5. Pain comes from
form-attachment. It takes two forms: Attachment to the forms of earth, of men
and place; attachment to the truth. They both bring pain and pain must cease.
Ask your soul how?

[649]

6. The threefold load, the
blazing star, the path of light, the greater Star and through them all the
throbbing of the heart of love, streaming from out the Ashram of D.K. enfolding
all and thee.

September 1943

MY BELOVED BROTHER:

A.A.B. has just called my
attention to the six statements which I gave you to reflect upon more than a
year ago. Knowing all that you had been through in the interim and are now
passing through, she realised how extremely apposite and suitable they had
proved to be. Pain has engulfed you and yours; anxiety along many lines, and
all of them severely testing, has been your lot. Had you not been "close
to the feet of the Lord of your Life," you would have reached what might
have been regarded as the valley of desperation.

Yet you have not been truly
desperate because the "haze of blue" has protected you, your group
brothers have stood as a shield around you, and the strength of my Ashram has
been at your disposal. People often fail to realise the nature and the potency
of that strength—a strength that comes from a deep impersonal love and from the
realisation that, in the light of the eternal verities, all pain is but
temporary, all trouble and struggle ephemeral, and that we have passed oft this
way before upon the unhappy little planet of suffering which we call the Earth.
We come to know that we shall not pass this way so oft again. Did you
grasp the significance of that sentence, my brother?

Just as there are days in a
year which seem to stand out because of their darkness and to be overcharged
with blackness and agony, so there are lives which equally so stand out in a
cycle of lives because of the varied experiences which they convey, the bitter
piling up of pain and distress, and the handling of an accumulation of unhappy
and oft agonising karma. But, my brother, all lives are not like this, and the
fact that your present life has been for years so hard is the guarantee that
you have worked off much karma, that you [650] stand infinitely freer and are less handicapped. The
fruits of all this suffering you will reap as you enter your next incarnation.

So be of good cheer, and look
forward and out towards a future of service and of joy, and this because you
have endeavoured to live selflessly and to carry your load bravely, and because
your life and deeds and your entire career have helped so many.

I would remind you that pain,
when it is lived out mentally for others, is the worst kind of pain. This you
know. But I would remind you that the capacity so to do and so to identify
yourself with pain that is not specifically your own is something that all
disciples have to master, because it is one of the first steps towards
shouldering world pain and the agony of the human family, thus becoming a
participant in the "fellowship of Christ's sufferings" and a lifter
of world burdens. We work and live on a planet of pain. Until a man is an
initiate of high degree he cannot even begin to sense the reasons why this is
so; he must perforce then take refuge in the trite platitudes that suffering
humanity has evolved to account for things as they are. None of these in any
way approximate the true reasons or give any real insight into the problem. Men
must wait for understanding until they can no longer be hurt or limited by the
pain of others. This follows when we have learnt to handle our own pain. Then
and only then can they begin to lift the burden of humanity as a whole and do
their responsible share in lightening it.

We come again here to those
contradictory and beautiful words: Isolated Unity. When one is isolated from
form attachments and when one is freed for identification with the life aspect,
then one can know the true meaning of unity, then one is released from pain and
one is free to release others also.

This you are learning, and it
is the last great lesson for you this life. It takes some time to learn it,
because it is one of the very few basic lessons, implicating principles which
are inherent in the planetary life and requiring the implementing of the soul
to arrive at true understanding. You have made much progress along this line
during this life and [651] have
no cause for self-depreciation or regrets. I tell you this for your assurance,
and would ask you to rest back upon my words.

Keep busy with my work, my
brother, for there is naught left for the true disciple but the work of the
Ashram, which is the work of the Hierarchy, which is work for humanity. Such is
the outgoing sequence. For you now, it is not so much the eager, active, outer
service, of which you have done so much in the past years, but it is the
standing steady, and so becoming a channel and a link. Remember with care the
words I gave you last year: "I now can serve by Being."

Do not strive so much, my
brother. Accept life conditions as they are; acquiesce in the situation as it
is; relax for the remainder of this incarnation, and exoterically rest from
your labours and esoterically enter into light. Work not under such a sense of
inner strain and effort. I refer not to the outer strains and stresses to which
you are subjected for they exist and are hard and difficult. I refer to your
own inner attitude of recognition and acquiescence, of Being and attainment.

Those are the four key
thoughts for your personal reflection during the coming year. The year that is
on its way will hold great changes for you but you are strong enough and
experienced enough to carry through triumphantly. The coming months will hold
for you revelation, and that revelation will enhance the light upon the Lighted
Way which stretches out before you; they will hold opportunity for you also, if
you learn the hard lesson of relinquishment, and when next year closes you may
find yourself surprised at the distance you will find you have travelled, the
enlightenment you may find you have gained, and the increased sphere of your
subjective usefulness.

Remember—you are not
alone. I stand by and carry you consciously within my aura.

November 1944

MY BELOVED FRIEND AND TRUSTED
DISCIPLE:

My heart has gone out to you
during the past year as you have struggled with fatigue, with loneliness, with
foreboding [652] and
with anxieties of many kinds. You have stood with constant steadiness and you
must know by now how highly steadiness is regarded by the Hierarchy. These
culminating years of your life have been years of great difficulty and much
pain—not only for yourself but for others. They have been years wherein
everything has been wrested from you, leaving you upon that "pinnacle of
loneliness" about which I spoke to your brother, W.D.S., in my instruction
to him last year. I would have you regard that pinnacle as an exalted place
from which the new vision can be seen. That pinnacle can be turned into a mount
of initiation.

You have passed the three
score years and ten of ordinary living and you are privileged to look back upon
a life of great usefulness and of much inner spiritual progress. You have
disposed of much karma and are far freer than when you entered into
incarnation.

The crux of the lesson which
you are now in process of learning is to refrain from expectation—from life,
from people and from circumstances—except that expectation which concerns
spiritual opportunity and your relation to my Ashram. Disciples need to regard
the Ashram more definitely as a place of spiritual enveloping, if I may
use so peculiar a phrase. They need to regard it as a circle of protection,
remembering that if their consciousness can escape into the Ashram, they are in
a place of complete security where naught can reach or hurt them. Neither pain
nor anxiety can overwhelm the man who dwells in the consciousness of eternity;
this sense of the eternal, coupled with the realisation of essential unity,
marks all dwellers in an Ashram.